In Iran, "Execution for Apostasy Seems Imminent." More here.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Another impending execution that the press should be talking about
(Still) More on Natural Law and Judging: Baur replies to Arkes (and Arkes responds)
Prof. Michael Baur sends in this response (below) to a recent blog-contribution by Prof. Hadley Arkes:
In Book IV of his Republic (at 435a), Plato suggests that it is only through the jostling or rubbing together of our varying ideas and conceptions (much like the rubbing together of two dry sticks) that we can ignite the spark of insight and arrive at a true understanding of things. I am deeply grateful for Professor Arkes’s thoughtful dialogical jostling, through which some very significant questions have emerged. Let me now try to repay at least part of the debt that I owe. . .
[UPDATE: I've added Prof. Arkes's response at the end of Baur's post, after the jump]
Monday, September 26, 2011
Pope Benedict's "Reflections on the Foundations of Law"
Richard Myers called our attention to the Pope's recent address to the Bundestag, "The Listening Heart: Reflections on the Foundations of Law." It strikes me that this talk warrants a lot more conversation and exploration and engagement, especially from we lawyers. Contact your local Catholic lawyers clubs, Catholic law-students associations, etc., and dig into the lecture. Here's just one bit:
. . . Unlike other great religions, Christianity has never proposed a revealed law to the State and to society, that is to say a juridical order derived from revelation. Instead, it has pointed to nature and reason as the true sources of law – and to the harmony of objective and subjective reason, which naturally presupposes that both spheres are rooted in the creative reason of God. . .
Conscience, Coercion, and Healthcare
At Public Discourse, Helen Alvare, Carter Snead, and Gerry Bradley add their voices to the many who are urging the Administration to re-think the proposed "interim final rule" regarding "preventative services." A bit:
[T]hroughout American history, religious institutions have been the leading private providers of charitable, educational, and medical services to the poor, always serving those they felt were the most marginalized populations of their day—whether slaves or freed slaves, new immigrants, Native Americans, prisoners, or persons with AIDS. The quality and efficiency of their care, and the compassion with which it has been delivered, are often noted. Regularly, the populations served did not share the faith of the religious institutions who took up their cause
Given their solidarity with the dispossessed, religious leaders of every denomination have, throughout American history, also effectively led a variety of human rights’ movements, including the movements for abolition of slavery, for civil rights, for campaigns to end poverty, and for justice for immigrants, the elderly, those with disability, and the unborn. The presence of religious leaders and religious institutions in the public square—and not behind the walls of their monasteries, churches or homes—is an inescapable aspect of America’s history of progress and prosperity.
The proposed exemption disregards this history by limiting its application to employers who do little (or nothing) but preach to the convinced. . . .
Lewis on "American Exceptionalism"
I appreciated this essay, in America, by C.U.A.'s Brad Lewis (who is visiting at Notre Dame this year), called "American Exceptionalism: From a Political Theory to an Article of Faith." Check it out.
No lying, ever: Redux
We had a lively discussion (as did others) a few months ago about Chris Tollefsen's (and others') argument that "lying" is never morally permissible. In this post, at First Things, Tollefsen (and Alexander Pruss) return to the conversation, with their "Case Against False Assertions." Tollefsen and Pruss are responding, in particular, to Janet Smith, who took a different view here.
I replied to Tollefsen's earlier argument here. I continue to think that the position "it is always wrong to intentionally deceive another" is not plausible, and I don't think the position is made much more plausible with qualfications that distinguish, say, strategic (deceptive) feints on the battlefield from "assertions." To think this is not to think (I think!) that it is permissible to "do evil that good might result"; it is to think that to deceive is not necessarily to "do evil."
Friday, September 23, 2011
"Civil Rights", "Religious Wrongs", and the Ministerial Exception
Prof. Vivian Berger argues here that "religious rights" can be "civil wrongs", and so urges the Court to reject the ministerial-exception claim in the upcoming Hosanna-Tabor case. I agree with the first sentence of Prof. Berger's piece:
On Oct. 5, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a very significant case that pits a Lutheran parochial school's assertion of First Amendment rights against the claims of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a fired teacher, Cheryl Perich, of violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
Otherwise, I'm afraid I think her arguments miss the mark. Just a few points: First, Prof. Berger says that "Hosanna-Tabor illustrates a recurring tension between two bedrock guarantees: the religion clauses of the First Amendment and the civil rights laws." But, these are not, as I see it, two similarly "bedrock" guarantees. That is, the Constitution of the United States forbids governments from interfering with religious freedom (in certain ways); it does not forbid non-governmental employers from discriminating on the basis of age or disability nor does it require Congress to exercise its own powers to forbid such discrimination. Please don't (intentionally or negligently) misunderstand my point here: Of course our laws against employment discrimination by private employers are important and promote the common good. But this case is about a particular constraint -- i.e., the First Amendment -- on the government; any nondiscrimination laws -- even ones we really and rightly like -- must, in order to be valid (let alone "bedrock"), comply with that constraint.
Next, Prof. Berger asserts that "[e]ven if redressing Perich's injury might incidentally burden the church's rights to choose employees who engage in important religious work and to control its religious message, the government's compelling interest in eradicating discrimination ought to trump these." Obviously, the words "incidentally" and "compelling" are doing a lot of work here. But, again, injury done to the church's religious-freedom rights would hardly be incidental in this case, and it is far from clear that the means being employed -- i.e., applying nondiscrimination laws to second guess religious institutions' decisions about who should be their teachers, ministers, and leaders -- is necessary to the substantial advancement of the government's compelling interest.
Third, Prof. Berger concludes with this:
In sum, the Court should reject Hosanna-Tabor's overbroad position and render unto Caesar what is Caesar's by affirming Perich's right to freedom from retaliation — which is enshrined in laws inspired by constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection.
I agree entirely that the Court should, in this case, keep Caesar to what is Caesar's. But, the point is, there are "things that are not Caesar's." These things include "the authority to decide who should be a minister."
The President calls for more politics from (some) pulpits?
To paraphrase Glenn Reynolds, "they told me that if I voted for John McCain we'd see the Administration using sympathetic clergy to push its agenda . . . and they were right!"
(Hee Hee.) I do not believe, of course, that there should or could be a clear line excluding "politics" from the "pulpit:
. . . [T]he First Amendment does not constrain — in fact, it protects — "political" preaching and faith-filled activism. Yes, our Constitution preserves a healthy separation between the institutions of religion and government. This wise arrangement protects individual freedom and civil society by preventing the state from directing, co-opting or controlling the church. It imposes no limits, though, on conversations among religious believers — whether on Sunday morning, around the water cooler, or at the dinner table — about the implications of their faith for the controversies of the day. Our First Amendment protects religious freedom, individual conscience and church independence from government interference; it requires neither a faith-free public square nor politics-free sermons. . . .
The USCCB weighs in on the "religious employer" exemption to the contraception-coverage mandate
Anthony Picarello and Michael Moses -- both of whom are strongly committed to, and learned regarding, religious freedom -- have submitted, from the USCCB's Office of General Counsel, a detailed and comprehensive comments-letter regarding the Administration's proposed "interim final rule" (??) on "preventative services", that is, to the proposed requirement that employee-health-care plans include coverage for contraception and sterilization procedures. Among other things, the letter highlights the "religious-gerrymander" dimension of the mandate (i.e., the fact that the effect of the mandate, though not targeted explicitly at Catholic institutions, is almost entirely on Catholic institutions) and notes that, putting aside the First Amendment, the mandate-with-very-narrow-exemptions probably violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
I am unable to identify reasons -- other than indifference (or worse) to the religious-freedom interests of Catholic institutions -- for the Administration to resist the call by the USCCB (and others, like CUA's Prof. Stephen Schneck, who is a supporter of the A.C.A. as a general matter) for a more accommodating exemption.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
"Rethinking Chesterton"
There are not many books that meant more to me, when I was in college, than G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy and The Dumb Ox. I must have read hundreds of his essays, poems, books, and novels over the years. What a great writer, and what (I think) a perceptive thinker. Entertaining, too! Anyway, I enjoyed this piece, "Rethinking Chesterton," in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Chesterton, we learn, was a "beery supporter of small-scale government." Right on! BSSSG's of the world unite!
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